No Great British Thespian nowadays is without a lucrative sideline in
superhero movies or blockbusters. Sir Ben Kingsley has now joined the club
of Sir Ian McKellen, Dame Maggie Smith, Ralph Fiennes et al by becoming the
Mandarin in Iron Man 3. Along with Jack Nicholson as the Joker,
Kingsley is one of the few super-villains who also have an Oscar – in his
case, for playing Gandhi.

The Mandarin’s role is brilliantly twisted, and pivotal to the new
Disney-Marvel film, which stars Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man and Gwyneth
Paltrow as his girlfriend-in-peril Pepper Potts. No sooner does Iron
Man/Tony